Better Days

"You ask me what I want this year
and I try to make this kind and clear,
just the chance that maybe we'll find better days....."

More than ever this is how I feel about Christmas right now. The world is changing and every day changes my world more and more. The things that I used to love about Christmas have been replaced. Instead of the things that are under the tree I find myself valuing and preferring the people that put them there.

"So take these words and sing out loud,
'cause everyone's forgiven now,
tonights the night that the world begins again...."

We have to realize that the Kingdom of God is not something that is coming in the future but something that is among us right now. It exists in each person and in the connection between each person and community. It is power, such power. Every interaction you have with another person can be used for evil or good, can bring about evil or good. You can convey openness or closed-ness in every look. Even salvation itself. Christ offers it in bread and wine, simple things that are not saving in themselves but can lead to Life. I see this around me sometimes and am awed by it.

"I wish everyone was loved tonight
and somehow stop this endless fight,
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days"

I come back to it again and again, the wisest thing I have ever heard is that I am responsible for the righteousness of everyone in the world. My actions, thoughts, words, desires, dreams affect those of the people I interact with, their lives in turn affect the people around them. Our lives are interconnected ripples across the whole world. We are all connected. We are all One. The Kingdom of God.

I pray for the those in the world who have been crushed and silenced. For the victims of continued war in Iraq, Somalia, Columbia, Darfur, Afghanistan, Palestine and others that I do not know of. I pray for those in our own country that are legally exploited in order to make the rest of us rich and able to have such beautiful Christmas celebrations, that their many sacrifices are not forgotten and may even be redeemed by the Grace of God. I pray for those who are incarcerated and forgotten at Christmas, they are still human and in great need of real love. I pray that everyone can the thankful for something this Christmas and know that they have the power to make better days.

Merry Christmas!